Living on next to nought - is that the key?

ellesbellesxxx

Hi Greying
Just started to read your posts and wanted to say how much I love your trio of blessings in your post - puts things in perspective!
I will continue to read...xx

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Evening :hello:

I took the liberty of editing my previous post. So I've been typing if you wonder why dinner took so long

Right, tonight we had - a vegetarian version of - Loobia Polo (many different ways to spell it) which is a Persian dish. I got the recipe from a book on Persian cuisine. But the closest version to the one I cooked is HERE (but I don't use saffron) and if you would like to make your own adiveh spice blend, a close replica of the version I use is HERE, (scroll down the page) although I admit I do not have the rose petals to put in the blend. I also use black pepper (half a tsp) and turmeric (half a teaspoon), but actually, in the loobia recipe that I have linked, those 2 spices are already in the dish - whereas they weren't listed in the recipe I follow.

I also make it entirely on the stove top. I cook basmati rice separately, by the absorption method - and cook the 'stew' bit and then amalgamate the two. It is a dish that is nice served hot or a room temp (how we had it tonight) and whereas the original version of this dish incorporates meat - I obviously leave that out - and this evening I served the rice topped with sliced boiled egg. For presentation purposes, I momentarily wished I had my old gran's (long since left us) wire egg 'guillotine' - with which I was always transfixed as a child :rotfl:

Upsidedown Bear - keep working

ellesbellesxxx - great username welcome. Please feel free to pitch in and add to the thread. And thank you for your very kind comment.

I happened to be near ASD* today, so ducked in to buy some bananas. I always weigh them, so I know whether they are in my budget or not. I noticed the weigh scales had disappeared. On enquiry, it seems that they have gone all fancy and got 'new' touchscreen weighing machines.

I tried not to be too belittled whilst the assistant demonstrated how a customer can, without the aid of a safety net - use the scales....themselves. It perplexed them when, having printed out the price label they announced, 'and then you stick the label to the bag........oh'. I never put produce in a bag anyway, but I only wanted to weigh them to see how much they were. They were too expensive, so I had to utter my thanks, then creep back later, remove 3 bananas off the bunch and print a new label :rotfl: Someone needs to tell ASD* that Waitflower have had these machines for aaaggggeeesss. I'm pretty sure I've used them in the (very) large branches of Tosco too. *sigh*

I have set some more parsley seed off to soak. I'll put them into compost just now whilst I put the salad stuff back into the greenhouse. The pot of parsley has really come on in leaps and bounds now that it has broken the surface of the compost.

So, I'll round off with the 3 things I am grateful for today;

- weigh scales in supermarkets. I am grateful that you can still weigh loose produce and that everything is not yet presented in the ubiquitous pre-weighed, plastic bag. Enabling you to buy as much or as little as you need, and have some idea of how much it is going to cost before you proceed to the checkout.

- the NHS. It's in the news and I know that it fails some and is literally a lifesaver for others. I would rather have the NHS than be without it.

- sharing. Just as chips 'nicked' out of someone else's paper always taste better, something shared, is always sweeter.

Thank you so much for reading and commenting. I do appreciate it.

See y'all later.

Greying

Manxie01

Good Evening, Greying Pilgrim - just to say that I have joined the site today, and have read all your posts with interest (love the recipe links, as I too am Veggie, and desperately trying to save money at every opportunity).
Look forward to catching your post tomorrow,

Manxie.

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning :hello:

Welcome Manxie01. How nice of you to drop in. Lovely weather for the TT this year eh? Now tell me, have all those lovely biker folk left your fair isle ship shape? Have they restored the hedges to a near upright position? Taken all their drinks cans to the recycling bank?

Well, today will be a NSD. I have no need to buy anything.

Dinner tonight will be a soup/stew which I know originates from the Cov3nt Garden Soup book. I'll try and find a link later to give an idea. We'll have flatbread with it.

Do you recall I was pleased with the 'made-up' bun flavouring recipe I'd done at the weekend for our grand adventurising? well, they may well of been a one off and I'll, 'never be able to bake that recipe again....oh no.....' (with apologies to all Richard Harris/Macarthur Park fans ). According to a post on the Food & groceries thread, Tosco have discontinued their value cocoa powder for 'economic reasons'. Cocoa prices are something that fluctuate, but I do think that the value product was the cheapest by some long margin. It was also useful for adding to Chilli, something I'm not sure will work so well with drinking chocolate - (Sainsbobs basics which was suggested as an alternative). Ho Hum.

We have had rain overnight. It looks like we could have some more yet, but it's currently cooler and fresher and everything is looking a little less dusty.

I have (thankfully) finished off the last of 'batch 3' of the yoghurt this morning. Ill be able to make some 'nice' stuff again (fingers crossed) this evening. Yay!

Anyway. I'd better shuffle off. I've seen to the seedlings already. The mixed leaves lettuce seem to of grown overnight. Still, I'll leave them before harvesting - I'm not growing them for their 'micro leaf' properties

Have a good day one and all.

Thank you for reading I do appreciate it.

See y'all later.

Greying

7_week_wonder

Good morning,

I've enjoyed reading your latest updates and all the *fabulous* food blogs you link to. Blogs are a wonderful thing - I've bookmarked the Loobia Polo (don't call it Loopy Polo 7WW!) for when our runners beans start doing their stuff.

I hope your grey reflective mood of yesterday has lifted a bit. I totally get the "I know logically it's enough, but is it really...." feeling: no matter how much I tell myself that it is not the end of the world if I don't get something workwise straight away there is still a little voice nagging away!!

We have rain and more rain here, still at least it is during the week and it is making the garden grow: mangetout are amazing - we have these tiny little plants that look like they are producing nothing, but closer inspection reveals enough pods for a meal every other day:)

Good luck with the next batch of yoghurt - another thing I've found is that if (very big if!) I can leave some in the fridge for up to a week it definitely matures and to my mind is tastier than if I eat it straight away.

My mission this lunch-time is to sow some more salad and mange tout which I'll start of in the greenhouse at work and then take home at a later date.

Have a good day all.

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Evening :hello:

Well, it's been another sweltering day here. Really could of done with another bout of rain. But never mind.

I did achieve a NSD today :j

Dinner this evening was Sherba Soup. The recipe originally came from the Cov£nt Garden Soup company book - the green one I think. I copied out several recipes and then donated the book to Oxfam, as I find most recipe books only have a couple of recipes in them that you use anyway. And I'm getting more inspiration from the internet these days anyway.

I was trying to find a link. The original soup is basically a spiced lamb (which I leave out, natch) and chickpea soup. But looking on the net, it seems that there are different versions of the soup and it is known throughout central asia, eastern Europe, the middle east and africa - all with differing versions and slightly different spellings. I wonder if that places its origins firmly in the nomadic tribes/trader territory - maybe on the silk road?

The closest, in terms of ingredients, is THIS recipe which is a Tunisian version, which you can see is made with chicken, rather than lamb.

I didn't use orzo pasta in my version tonight. I think we've mentioned that rice shaped pasta on the thread before. For the pasta element (some recipes use bulghar) I used all the 'bits from the bottom of the bag' pasta. Every time I open a bag of pasta and put it into the Tupperware box in the kitchen, there are always broken bits in the bottom. I store all these in a tub, and use them in this dish or minestrone. It is using up all the produce you have paid for and means you can save your orzo for another dish :money: All I do is put them in a saucepan, pour over boiling water, bring that to the boil and then switch off the heat. By the time you have prepped the other soup ingredients and started cooking, the pasta is softened enough to add to the soup. Also, I didn't have lemon, and this is another soup that needs a citrus hit. So I ground up some toasted coriander seeds and added them, along with a scant teaspoon of tamarind concentrate. The citrusy/sour hit was just right.

This was served up with flatbreads. Wish it had had time to cool down to room temp as it was a little too muggy for soup. But nice and filling, none-the-less.

It struck me today that people might think that I use expensive ingredients - I use chickpeas and lentils quite a lot, and in some stores and packet sizes (or tinned versions), these pulses can be quite expensive. I possibly didn't explain that I buy them in 2kg bags, either periodically from an Asian supermarket, or as I did last time, from Tosco as they had 2kg bags of pulses on special offer, and frankly I could not of got them cheaper anywhere else. I then soak the chickpeas overnight and cook them in the pressure cooker for 10 mins. This gives me approx. 1kg of cooked chickpeas for each 500g soaked. It costs about the same as a tin of chickpeas for 1kg of home cooked chickpeas :money:

As you will know, there is no need to soak red lentils, but I use them so much that it is more cost effective to buy them in the bigger bags. I've been lucky to pick up a range of other beans from various sources - mostly appr*ved foods.

I forgot to mention yesterday whilst in ASD* I noticed that they still stock the 'leo' brand of peas to plant to get pea shoots. Unfortunately they are more expensive at 46p a box now (they used to be pennies) but at least they have them in stock. I think I'll put a box on the shopping list for August, then if they grow and we use/like them, I shall investigate how to do it more cheaply next season.

Well, I'm going to have to shuffle off I'm afraid, as I've got yoghurt and bread dough to make and I'll have to put the seedlings away too.

The 3 things I am grateful for today are;

- MSE. Nuff said.

- Freezers. Even if I did forget to get components for snap boxes out of it last night and had to do it this morning instead. #lunchcuddahadacrunch

- shade netting/demolition netting. Even though it is second-hand and has got holes in it. My small length of demolition netting has protected my seedlings from the fiercest rays of the sun. They are growing, not getting scorched.

Thank you all for popping by, reading and commenting. It is very kind and I do appreciate it.

See y'all later.

Greying

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Morning :hello:

A successful batch of yoghurt made overnight :j

In other good news, a rifle in my kitchen drawers turned up a thermometer. Now I thought that this had been disposed of, as the last time that I tried to use it, it appeared dead to the world. I assumed it's battery had worn out. However, in taking it to pieces, I found that the battery (a watch type button battery) was actually soldered into the body of the thermometer. This is why I thought I disposed of it - as (grr) it had obviously been made to be 'disposed' of. Anyway, I casually switched on the thermometer and... it worked!

And no, I can't explain that either.........:rotfl: however, scalded finger syndrome is hopefully now consigned to the past. With no additional money spent :money:

Today's expenditure will be on a bottle of wine to accompany dinner. We're having a very simple cheese and tomato pizza (can you tell we're nearing the end of the month ) and I think we'll have new potatoes to accompany, rather than HM chips. Whilst the oven is on (phew, I'll probably regret it ), I will make cake for snap boxes next week. I used up the last two eggs for the Loobia Polo (lovin 'Loopy polo' btw 7 Week Wonder), so I'll make an eggless cake using some......yoghurt :rotfl:

Right I'm off to set out the seedlings.

Have a great day, one and all.

I don't know if I'll beat the 7pm curfew on MSE tonight for an update, so in the meantime, thank you for popping in and reading. If you choose to leave a comment*, thank you.

See y'all later.

Greying

*appropriate, of course :D

Greying_Pilgrim

Good evening :hello:

I thought I would hop on here before I set on to make dinner - might beat the curfew

I have a question. Why is it that if someone irritates or upsets you - wittingly or unwittingly - that we, as human beings hold on to the feelings of negativity? The incident may of taken up 2 minutes or 2 hours of a day that is composed of 24 hours - and yet here we are with the negativity still imposing itself on mood x hours later. Well, I'm gonna shake it off - I've got Fleetwood Mac on very loud and I'm going to blow a great big raspberry - pppfffftttt to miserable so & so's

Feel better already :rotfl:

I have a confession. I did spend money not in the budget today. It will slightly lower the amount that I can sweep over into the 'key' fund. However, it was 'just' the thing; may well bring a smile to someone's face at a later point in the year and supported a charity - as it was from a charity shop.

Dinner this evening will be as proposed - pizza and new potatoes. I'm considering picking a few salad leaves too - they're a bit too tiny really - only doing it coz I can and I've never been able to afford to eat in Pizz *xpress, home of salad with hot food :rotfl:

I'm currently debating what 'flavour' to make the eggless cake. The recipe is for fruit cake, but I was wondering whether I could be a bit more adventurous. Actually, I meant to check whether the carrot cake recipe I have needs eggs................... it does - that's a non starter then. Mmmmm, I'm feeling a hybrid coming on - I'm feeling boosted up enough to defy convention and make a flavour up ....:rotfl:

Right, in case I don't get back in time, my 3 things that I am grateful for today;

- buskers (again). Two young lads today. Guitars and the odd 'drum' (upturned box) interlude. Very good and uplifting - where would buskers be without the Beatles though????

- Charity shops. I know some have become very pricey, but thank goodness for the little independents with their reasonable prices.

- Links - you know links to websites or links to photos. They enhance forum posts, PM's and e-mails and convey information in ways that a written description sometimes fails to do.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. I greatly appreciate it. Have a good weekend - I look forward to catching up with everyone when the forums are back up to speed. I'm sure the technical staff will try their hardest to make that sooner rather than later.

See y'all later.

Greying

beanielou

You have a good weekend too

Upsidedown_Bear

I'm off to get a life until the forum is back :eek::rotfl:

Enjoy your weekends Greying and everyone